I am a 72-year-old rock climber, collecting rare fungus specimens with my elite, expertly trained group of young hooligans. One of the girls proposes to one of the boys when we reach the top of the first peak near sunset. She gives him a ring she made herself in the jewelry studio in town.
He is so happy that he runs circles around the small campfire I've just managed to get going, and some sparks fly away into the darkness of the Crystal Caves beyond.
I hope that they hold all the marvelous fungi legend speaks of, but we shall have to wait until tomorrow to find out...
A shuffle. Something is moving in the darkness. It is late, and the fire has gone out. They told us to beware of lizards, our guides, but we are far away from the shrubbery that is their natural dwelling place. Could there be other creatures out there, lurking in the advantage of the new moon's cover? I rummage in my rucksack and produce a headlamp. Struggling out of the confines of my sleeping bag, bones creaking in the cold, dry mountain air, I sneak away from camp to investigate the tentative scurryings.
The sounds lead to one of the smaller caves, probably the dwelling of a night crawler of sorts. I decide to throw caution to the wind, as the taste of excitement and curiosity takes hold of my old bones and wistful heart. I imagine that I can call out to the creature and befriend it, and together we will climb the mountains searching for glory and natural cures for all ailments, for that most treasured of fungi that glows like the moon and unfolds its ferned head only once a generation to sprout anew...They say it can even cure cancer.
Swot. Something flutters to the ground behind me. I turn my head, and my spotlight illuminates a small maple leaf. Strange...That sort of tree doesn't grow around here... I enter the cave.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I squeeze through the opening. The ground is moist, almost warm, inside. There are two passageways crudely dug out of the sides of the natural cave, one leading upward, the other off to the left. I listen closely. The scamperings, fast diminishing, are coming from the left. I crawl in that direction. Then, suddenly, something huge moves behind me, its vibrations betraying a ponderous weight, and before I can turn, the entrance to the cave is shut off by a large boulder. Even though I am a savvy climber, and strong for my old age, I cannot make it budge. Not that it really bothers me very much. I am too excited to see where this tunnel goes. (I don't stop to wonder, until later, how a boulder larger than the entrance could have contrived to enter the cave in the first place...)
I continue hobbling faster down the tunnel, my knees not complaining for once because they, too, are excited to see where this venture culminates. I am thinking that I should have brought my camera in case there are any interesting fungi or insects along the way, when the path ahead of me opens into a vast cavern. Along the walls are runes of beautiful colours, golden, red-green, shining masterpieces that twine across to the other side. Intertwined among the colours are dark depictions of sacrifice and torment, daemons and angels and terror. They increase in size and vividity until they point to a throne painted on the apex of the ceiling. And in the throne, swathed in purple robes, sits a devil black as shadow...
In noticing the ceiling and walls, I have almost completely ignored the floor of the august cavern. I have been treading upon the softest and palest of ferns-- the flowering fungi of legend! I halt immediately, bending down to inspect them more closely...
When a voice speaks out of the darkness. "If you break it, you buy it." I whirl frantically, my headlamp swinging around randomly, searching. The quite voice continues. "You know, I really wouldn't advise taking a step further, unless you have a really great excuse for the desecration of my garden."
"I-I'm sorry," I say, backing up a step, trying to localize the sound. "I had no idea this was someone's garden. These caves are government-sanctioned nature preserves, so I wasn't aware that anyone could plant here. These are very lovely ferns," I continue. The echoes are tricky, but it seems-- the voice is coming from the ceiling. I gaze upward in time to see the shadow-devil from the central portrait peel himself out of the two-dimensional, and, frowning, reply in a softly menacing voice: "You thought wrong."
He lands on a protrusion of rock in the center of the cave, settles himself down and raps on its side. "Have a seat," he offers, and another rock emerges under my behind. "I do hope you're planning on staying for a long time, because now you've discovered my lair, I'm afraid you can't leave. You see, some...angels...of destruction happen to be looking for me to fulfill a certain curse they have in mind, and if I let you go, you might spread word of me and ultimately bring about my untimely, if well-deserved, persecution. So you may as well make yourself comfortable. Besides, by the looks of your well-worn hide, you won't last long anyway." I rear up from the rock, affronted.
"Now, listen here! If you were so keen on no one discovering you, why did you lead me straight to your lair? Surely you knew I was following you, and could've blocked off the entrance before I got there. Why then, did you wait until it was too late to warn me off? I think it's down-right cruel, even for a devil."
"Now, you're a smart old human nag. Try to see my predicament. I've been hiding up in these craggs for millennia. I'm bored. I'd even go so far as to say-- lonely. You don't look as if you have much life left anyway, so what am I really taking from you? Besides, I'm a great storyteller. I can help you pass your days with comfort until the final end. I am in every respect a perfect companion, but--" sniff-- "have never had the opportunity of proving my skills, thanks to those self-righteous, truth-seeking heavenly heroes out there. I can't get in a moment's chat with proper society for fear of being spotted. It's an atrocious way to live."
So, I stayed with the devil. I listened, and my, did he have good stories. But, come morning, I sneaked out the top hole which ventilated the inner cavern, and returned to my companions with a sack full of the glowing fungi of the cave. We returned to the city and gave them to a lab to test for cures, and are still waiting for the reply.
I often wonder what became of that daemon. But then, how many travelers pass through even the most remote and forbidden government preserve in a year?
I'm sure he has plenty of company.
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